


As In Memories

by Mephistophilia



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Kind of happy ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:53:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24039184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mephistophilia/pseuds/Mephistophilia
Summary: What happened before and after Gellert Grindelwald’s death... and because I really wanted to give our boys a taste of sweetness after all they’ve been through, though this may hurt a bit at first. It’s been edited, and most of the quirky mistakes have been removed.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Comments: 9
Kudos: 61





	As In Memories

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there!  
> So glad I could share this, ‘cause it’s my very first fanfic and I hope you can actually enjoy it. GGAD is the only pairing I’ve ever liked, though it hurts so much that I just have to spin a story of my own. It probably won’t be the only work I’ll post here, but really, that depends on whether or not I survive the next few days... conditions are kind of bleak where I live right now. As always, English is not my mother tongue, and I was half-delirious when I wrote this, so feel free to point out mistakes!

He remembered the light.  
He remembered it, though all he saw these days is murky grey and faded black, the shadows that lengthened as they crept across the reaches of his cell, rising up against the crumbling walls, crawling over slabs of weathered rock that stood firm against the Alpine winds of winter. Cruel winds that knew no more of mercy than he did. He had detested it at first, detested the tiny space and its suffocating confines that would not allow him to stretch his legs, detested the thin robe that kept out neither cold nor heat, detested the frightened faces of his guards when they ventured near to bring him food, though they grew fewer in numbers over the years as the world thundered along its uncharted tracks and left him there, to be forgotten like the carcass of a slain dragon. He had detested the dragonslayer too, but only during the first few years.  
He found it curious some days, how much hate could resemble love and love imitate hate to fool the unwary. He had been unwary before, when he thought himself well-nigh invincible because of a wooden stick he had stolen, a stick that augmented his enormous potential and made him the bane of the old world order. He had been so close, but not close enough. One mistake, one tiny impulse of mercy and of doubt, and he was condemned to the dark for fifty-three years, half a century of drowning in cold and darkness, with only memories of the light to sustain him.  
But none of that matters now.  
Perhaps none of it ever mattered. What he once liked and disliked, his hopes and dreams of a better world, the broken words of a battered old man unheard as they were spoken — none of it mattered, as he stared into the wand tip of a snake-like creature clad in dark robes, who spoke as he once did of wishes fulfilled and dreams that could come true with full compliance. He knew every word of this speech, spat out between the uneven teeth of the man who called himself the Dark Lord, who wanted things that could do him no earthly good, power and respect and fear that meant nothing because it was the epitome of fake loyalty. Lord Voldemort. The serpent who would pretend to be a man.  
He had seen this coming, of course. He had had plenty of time to prepare, because if there was one thing that wasn’t in short supply in his cell, it was time that had no purpose. He had known that this would happen, that Voldemort would seek him out in his quest for the Elder Wand, a quest that he would fail because there were so many things he failed to understand. He had simply known one morning, as he woke up from a vivid dream of a lightning-struck tower bathed in a flash of ghostly green light, illuminating a face he had not seen for fifty years as it tumbled to the earth like a broken doll. He had jerked awake then, to see that same face pressed close to his, only a century younger as ocean-blue eyes stared into his own mismatched gaze. It was the shock of a lifetime.  
And it wasn’t — couldn’t — be real. Albus Dumbledore was dead. He knew that. He had known it the moment he Saw it, his Sight the one ability still left to him after half a lifetime of imprisonment, a gift that sometimes morphed into a curse but never once lied to its master. His Sight had told him that he might not win the duel, and he hadn’t. His Sight had shown him that Albus Dumbledore was dead, and he was. The only thing it had not shown him was this unearthly apparition wearing the face of his eighteen-year-old love, lying next to him on the narrow bed, staring at him with eyes older than the sun.  
“Albus?” His voice was a hoarse, rattling whisper as he stretched forth both hands to cup the face that had haunted his every dream, the face he thought he would never see again. Its eyes closed at the proximity of a human touch, and the spectre (for that’s what he thought it was) melted away like the morning mist as soon as his fingers made contact. He was once again alone, in an empty grey cell hewn out of dark rock.  
He had cried then, for the first time in a hundred years. For what, he did not know.  
He had contemplated leaving, after that. Who would dare stop him from exiting this prison, now that the Wizarding World was in such disarray? He thought of leaving, of seeing the daylight again, of the snowy mountaintops and shady forests of tall pines just a few miles down. Once he even stepped into the corridor that led to the front gates of Nurmengard, yet somehow he couldn’t. He just... couldn’t. He remembered those clear blue eyes as they softly closed beneath his touch, the warm flesh fading away like the ghost of a thousand laughs. Was that all he was now? An echo, meaningless and forsaken, because he lost a single duel so long ago? His mind was in strange places as he sat down again on his hard bed, all thoughts of leaving gone as suddenly as they had appeared. He could make a decision without regrets for once.  
And he did not feel regret now, staring up into the pallid face of the only wizard whose notoriety surpassed his, a face he hated because it was the reason why Albus was no longer alive, after a lifetime of being forced to play the hero. First Grindelwald, now Voldemort. This little brat who dreamed of immortality because he never understood what it meant, like a child batting at dancing flames because he thought only of how pretty fire could be and failed to notice the stench of his own sizzling flesh. Another fool who would feign sleep because he did not wish to wake, and he was done with it all tonight.  
“I thought you would come... one day.” His voice was as raspy as the dried leaves of autumn, drifting slowly with the breeze. “But your journey was pointless. I never had it.”  
The wizard had hissed then, a noise that spoke of his fraying displeasure as clearly as the purplish vein that had bulged suddenly across his pale, hairless scalp. A searing pain stabbed him behind the eyes as he locked himself in a match of willpower against the half-man who had killed Albus. _His_ Albus, whose grave contained the Elder Wand and a body he had once loved and knew. _I am the knife and the wound it deals,_ he thought as the pain intensified, _I am the slap and the cheek, I am the wheel and the broken limbs, hangman and victim both! I am the vampire at my own veins, one of the great lost horde..._  
He must have passed out at that, though it was hard to say, because when he came to he was laughing, laughing so hard that he could hardly draw breath, the mad cackle of one who has already won but never had anything to lose in the first place.  
“Kill me then, Voldemort, but my death will not bring you what you seek! There is so much you do not understand...”  
He could tell the exact moment when Tom Marvolo Riddle broke off the attempt to read his mind, his eyes twin slits of scarlet fury as he raised his wand — _Doomed for the rest of my time, and beyond, “To laugh — and smile no more”..._  
The flash of green came as he knew it would, and the world fell away into nothingness.

He awoke on a surface without color or texture, a simple flatness that bore him without complaint. There was no sky above as he slowly stretched and glanced upwards to see what death had brought him, only a vague misty expanse that was neither air nor liquid. It was quiet here, and warm, and he closed his mismatched eyes as he remembered the cell and the face of the serpent who had ended his life, for surely this was all he could ever hope to deserve. The mist was comforting, in its own odd way, for he could not make out his own features when he touched them. It was as if he no longer had age.  
There was a solitary bench a little ways off, and he made his way to it and sat down, not knowing what else to do. He remembered the way the vision of Albus had stared at him, and he waited. The old scar on his palm burned slightly, perhaps in memory of the night he had made it, with Albus in a barn.

~~~~~~~

He watched as the tall, straight figure of the Boy Who Lived turned away to face the world of the living, and he knew that his work was complete. There had been fear, yes, and despair even more deadly during the young hero’s journey, but now the finishing line was within sight. The boy had learned how to be a man, and the world he had loved and died for would soon know lasting peace as it struggles to rebuild from the ashes of the two wars it had survived.  
He had been waiting here for so long. How long, he could not be sure. He only knew that he had to wait so that Harry could get the answers he wanted and deserved. Time was of no relevance here, in this limbo as he had come to call it. He could not see himself sometimes while he waited, but he had assumed the form Harry was most familiar with when they met, because that was what the place seemed to expect of him — the figure of the mentor who had died so that others may live.  
And it was a good end, he supposed — the best he could have asked for, under the circumstances. He had lived a long life, full of loss and loneliness and half-hearted smiles at the antics of the world as it fought for balance and justice. Dying was the easiest thing he’d ever done, and it was easier still to rest and think of nothing save himself. He allowed himself to be selfish in death, now that he had nothing more to do. He was sad, so he mourned. He was tired, so he slept, and the heavy grief that had him in its grip for almost a hundred years lessened slightly as he reclaimed that part of himself that once dared to love and to dream.  
He turned, now, expecting to see the mist part to reveal the afterlife, with his family and perhaps even Gellert waiting for him at the end of it. He did not expect to see the latter seated six feet away, on the very bench where he had talked with Harry just a few minutes ago.

~~~~~~~

“Albus,” he said, and his voice was no longer as hoarse as the death rattle of a dying animal as he looked his fill on the love of his life, now as beautiful and glorious as the first time he had seen him. The figure of his lover had been indistinct a few moments before, when he first came slowly out of the mist, but now it was as tangible as himself, warm and alive and no longer old.  
His lover stared at him, and he felt a flicker of uncertainty as he remembered the empty gaze of the vision that had appeared to him in his cell, but it dissipated a moment later as Albus — real, genuine, and so close — smiled back as he approached, his steps full of certainty. “Did you think I would leave you here, all alone?”  
“ You did, once before.” There was no hint of reproach in Albus’ voice, and it was as gentle as it ever was.  
“Ah,” his reply was just as light, “And we both know what came of that.”  
His old friend laughed slightly at that, and the silence that followed was both quiet and comfortable.  
Albus scuffed the toe of his boot against the floor. “So it would seem as though the last part of this journey —“ he began, blue eyes twinkling with the glory of a thousand stars, “Would be taken together, in life as well as in death.” Gellert found himself on his feet again, bending down to pull his lover in for the kiss that would last forever.  
And this time, Albus did not push him away.

The End

_Tonight I can cry like a man,_ said 人止， _and feel the tears sliding across my cheeks, because I know nothing ever truly disappears, as we all leave shades of ourselves behind. Tonight, Albus, you told me without words to greet death like an old friend._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for finishing it! Leaving a comment if you liked it, please, and kudos to make my day! The poem is by Baudelaire, The Self-Tormentor, and its use was inspired by my favorite comic artist.


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